I've said it before, but the things that look the easiest and simplest are often the hardest. Minimalism, transparency, it's all hard to grasp for someone used to bold, vibrant Copic work, I'll tell you that much. I'm use to just hitting you in the face with colour and that impulse is hard to curb unfortunately. This was supposed to be a lot more subtle but... yeah. BOOM!

I spent the morning watching videos by Malukah and one of them is full of cinematics from the early days of Elder Scrolls Online. It has this shot, rising above Dhalmora because back then all they had was baby zones done. Anyway, it's really pretty, despite the blur from the draw distance issues. I went there and took a picture as close as I could get (since I don't have magical camera control - it was also at night), this is what it looks like.

Yeah, see all the detail? See all the fancy?! I just... it's super hard to render in watercolour for *me* because I suck. Anyway, I was gonna just scrap the thing, but I tried again and came up with the picture above. Not great, not even good, but Mike says he likes it so... yeah. It counts.

The weirdest thing happens when you swish water and Zig Clean Colour Markers together. I had no ideas in my head, no inspiration, and I just threw caution to the wind and grabbed some markers. Then, in the clouds, I saw waves. A tiny surfer. It's not fantabulous, but it's cute.

Picked up two random images to colour and went to town. A grey kitty is a bit of a cop out, but I always like them in real life. Mike wanted a grey kitty before we got Gambit (she chose us) cos they're cute. And the girl is from one of the tiny Greeting Farm sets.

The middle of the week I was playing a ton of Elder Scrolls Online and maybe that easy fun sapped my ability to art. I dunno, but this is NOTHING like the reference photo or what I was trying to do. I mean, the foliage alone, it's just so shitty. This month is about trying things, so at least I tried, but just UGH for such failure.

I just got one of those Fineline bottles with masking fluid in it after my bottle that I filled ended up drying out and I wanted to try something. I miss rain, I wanted to do rain painting, and... I dunno, this was a bad idea. I couldn't get the rain drops correct, even with them being coloured instead of white, and it was really hard to paint the roughness of the lake water.

To get some colouring in I picked these three birds from Clearly Besotted and coloured them as parrots. My only issue was I stamped them in Adirondak ink and the Copics hate that, so I ended up with smudges of black in them. Not totally ruined though, so I'm counting it.

I didn't feel well until really late at night, so I didn't start painting until around 9pm. I tried, but I've just been coughing so much it's made everything difficult. I started painting without a plan so I didn't really know where I was going with this one. I mixed my Schminke paints with some of the Museum pencils for the tighter details.

Around 1am I was still up and I felt better so I decided to colour the little fairies set from Greeting Farm. They're super tiny, so you gotta have control of your hands, but it's still fun. I tried to vary their colours and their shading so if they end up on the same card they'll all have personality and interest.

I woke up SUPER early for a Saturday morning which sucked, so I decided to do art while I desperately tried to breathe. I coughed all through my meds, which was REALLY annoying, but I had fun with this. I'd painted the clipboard with black gesso the previous night, and then I put dollops of the three Dylusion paints and sprayed them with water and let it mix around. I kind of went nuts with the hair drying too, but whatever. I also splattered the colours on there with the splatter brush and wetted that. Then I brushed some of the Liquitex Black Lava onto it for sparkles. I dried that too, and then put two layers of Liquitex Gel Medium Gloss onto it to protect it. Since this is where I tape my paintings I needed a sealed layer. It's not perfect like if I'd bought it like this, but it was interesting to make.

I used my new board to paint this and I really feel like I'm getting better at this watercolour thing. It's still hard, and I made some mistakes, but I think that painting every day has helped a lot. We'll see, and I'm sure I'll screw up more, but I'd like to keep up the progress of learning.

Not feeling great, or being okay around the Copics, I just coloured this tiny pegasus from The Greeting Farm. I messed it up though. The eyes were all crazy and then her hair got messed up and... yeah. Art is hard and doesn't do what you want it to much.

I spent a lot of time downloading the songs from the cartoon show Steven Universe, and then listening to them, and I was inspired by the most recent song "It's Over" and did this painting. It's a sad, lonely song about unrequited love and I thought the colours and the image of the lone tree on the island really went with the mood the song set. I used y Kuratake Zig Clean Colour Real Brush pens for the background and then for the black I went in with my Copic marker. I wanted to have the same feel as a paint brush and ink, but with more control.

I also spent a LOT of time repackaging the huge pile of stamps on my desk, ripping them out of their packaging, stamping them out, putting them away and out of my space, So this way I have lots of things already stamped out for colouring something a day. I picked two of the new mermaids from The Greeting Farm because I'm trying to do *more* colouring and get more things used at least once before they go into my stash. The only thing I don't like about this is my phone has been iffy on taking good, true colour pictures and this came out darker than they're actually coloured.

I figured I should finally try to scrapbook some of the papers and photos that are piling up around the scrap corner and I love these photos from our anniversary back in February. I wanted to use Pretty Little Studio papers and it just so happened that the Magnolia collection went really well with the warm tones of the restaurant. I hope you like the layout and checkout the process video as well. It's short because I scrapbook really fast, lol!

One of the World Watercolour Month prompts was to be inspired by another artist so I chose Bored and Crafty on Instagram. She's got amazing stuff and posted a lake landscape very similar to this. I decided to use my Museum pencils because they seemed the best suited to this kind of thing. I'm happy with how this came out.

I wasn't well at all and to distract myself I decided to colour a lot. More than the one image, or just two bunnies, I finished the girl and ALL the rest of the bunnies. I don't like the brown I did, but I like the little onion bunny the best. Funny though, I don't like red onions. Hehehe.

THEN I tried to paint her with my PH Martin's Hydrus watercolours and I went way too dark right away. I wanted JUST a little watercolour across her eyes and cheeks, and the rest of her visible, but obviously you can see how that worked out. Then it got dark in the centre and that was bad. Then I decided to trace her features in black. Then it got even darker. Then I decided to go over her in white and... well.... I've made worse things. Let's just say that. I've made worse things and it looks better on the photo than it is in real life (no filter even) and I'm just going to leave it at that. ((nods))

This image was a first time sort of thing in two ways. The first was my first time using my Windsor and Newton limited palette that I made and trying to mix my own colours and the second was experimenting with the "loose botanicals" section of watercolouring. I truly don't understand watercolouring yet, I'll admit that, but this was a learning experience from start to finish. I'm really liking that part of World Watercolour Month.

Trish, and probably other people, was interested to see my shadow placement on the characters from the images before, so I figured I'd show how I planned out the shadows for these guys and I also used the little lines to show the placement I chose for the sun. Just to help us both out.

And here's the finished product. I also made sure to write down the little boy's hair combination because after all these times colouring him I think I found one I like. I hope you enjoy and are liking following me on this artistic journey!

Today I did a bit of an emotional painting for World Watercolour Month. The contrast between the hot and cold colours going with the idea of me being overwhelmed and not knowing what to do at any time, really. For someone without a job, or any real responsibilities, I seem to have a lot to do and no time to do it! It's all things I *want* to do, but for someone with ADHD, even things you like and enjoy can freak you out of they're not planned out and predictable. This was, yet again, inspired by +Coco Bee Art so don't think I'm just jacking her stuff, lol!

I'm in NO WAY perfect at this, and most people don't colour dark to light (a bad habit when watercolouring as well - it's all about light to dark!), but I thought I would share these because I know people have a hard time seeing the shadows and where the darkness would be on a person. If you have trouble, try looking at things in real life, the way they react to different light that's put on them. How does it bend in the curves? How does it hit when the light is diffused? How about in harsh light? Where do the shadows go and how does it make the object look? How do the shadows help convey that the object is 3D and not flat?

It also helps to keep in mind that these are cartoon images. Whatever amount of shadow you want to add can be correct. Cel shading in and of itself is perfectly viable. You can *suggest* that something is 3D without saying "hey, look, I have perfectly rendered every detail in painful realism on this cartoon stamp!" Sure, it's impressive when you can do that, but it's also either overkill, or utterly terrifying depending on what image you're using. Give it a go, try it out and see what level of shading you like, but remember it's only colouring. Don't compare yourself to others, be your own colourist, and just have fun! Art should only be painful when you're trying to express your soul, not when you're trying to colour a stamp!

Catching up with Steven Universe I'm always reminded of how much I love the backgrounds they do on the show. It's digital, I think, but I've seen watercolour proofs too so I knew I could definitely paint something in their style. I picked a simplified version of Beach City and a storm coming in.

For my colouring I'm working my way through the images I stamped out ahead of time and picked these two little girls. I was going to do just one, but frankly I have SO many stamps and I did have the time, so I just kept going and coloured another. I added harsher cast shadows than I normally do because, well, sunny!

By the next morning I was pretty sick of staring at this, and had to find meaning in the shapes. I took out the new Museum aquarelle pencils from Caran d'Ache and just started drawing shapes. I took the flat brush and scrubbed the colour out into areas and, well, it kinda looks like a landscape, yeah? This counts for both days, because it took two days, but then I'll only have 30 art projects for the month, so maybe I'll make it up somewhere else. We'll see if I catch up!

So, my dumb ass got inspired by this guy's videos: The Mind of Watercolour about spontaneous pictures, right? Yeah, so I just kind of... yeah. I have no idea what I was after. So I just sat there staring at it, all day, and yeah, I have no idea what I was doing or where I was going with it.

I decided to try something new, which may or may not have been a good idea, but I gotta expand my comfort zone. Right? Right. I tried for light and delicate background, but, you know, I'm SUCH a fan of the bright colours I couldn't help it.

Doing the reflections on the water was pretty damned trippy. Mike sent me a link for how Bob Ross does it, how Mike does it on his paintings, but oil is different than India Ink and I was a little worried. Mijello Mission Gold paints are so vibrant, but the black still wouldn't have been dark enough. I used the ink and watered it down, trying to get the reflection the same and pull it down with a flat brush, but the only one I had was way too big and kinda blah so I ended up buying a new brush! In the meantime I went for it and while it's not perfect it's not terrible so yeah. Bright and happy at least!

For my colouring I took a watercolour paper and blended three Distress Inks into it for the water. Then I used some PH Martin's bleedproof white for the bubbles. And I coloured the boy right quick. I tried to anatomical correctness, but I think I made him look a little too pudgy. Ah well, live and learn! He's still cute. The tiger fish on the other hand could definitely be better. Ugh.

Today I tried for more loose painting. I've seen many, many tutorials and examples of painting like this and I had to try it because as simple as it looks, it's not. Getting the look you want, getting the colours and the texture where you want it, yeah, not easy. This is going to take practise, but that's part of what this month is about! All said, I am happy with how these trees turned out, so that's good.

For my colouring I tried to do this stamp using the new Caran d'Ache Museum pencils and that was probably overkill. Not only does stamp colouring not require such fancy pencils, but doing such tiny detail on this little girl was hard. I do like how her skin came out eventually, though it was a struggle getting there and I still do not like Arches paper. I know, I'm the only watercolour artist that doesn't, but I don't. Anyway, I hope you like her, and she's got colour so I'm happy.

But he wasn't coloured so I took the time to paint him since I didn't feel like doing much of anything. Still took an hour or so, though, so it's not like I saved myself much hardship. I think he came out pretty good, though his facial hair was pretty hard to do. I used my Schminke watercolours as well as my Kuratake Zig Clean Colour Real Brush markers.

For colouring stamps I did the other two mermaids from the set I coloured the night before. Making sure to get these guys coloured up nice and fast is always good in my book. There's SO many stamps out on my desk right now awaiting colour. I'm telling you, it's naughty.

And for the colouring I had to take out the new little mermaids I got from the Greeting Farm on Friday. Since I'm making sure to colour a new stamp a day I had to get these guys in there as quickly as I could. So damned cute and tiny made it hard to colour, but hey, worth it right?

I wasn't too keen on the official prompt on the World Watercolour Month website so I was out on my own. I thought... tree. I haven't ever tried to do a watercolour tree before so I thought that'd be an interesting challenge. I have a very hard time dealing with the transparency and lightness you can get from watercolour and I think if I had a better hold on this my tree would have been nicer. BUT I think this came out pretty good. I like a lot of it, and the little details of leaves I added with my Faber-Castell Polychromos. I'll definitely try trees again, probably in the next few days if I don't like the prompt!

Continuing with the idea of using stamps I haven't coloured yet, I picked this fairy from Kraftin' Kimmie and used my Kuratake Zig Clean Colour Real Brush markers because I have such a hard time breathing around my Copics and this was so little I needed to be really close to it to see the detail. Even when very careful though it was hard to keep the colours from bleeding. Watercolouring on stamps is frustrating. Whereas with things I paint I want the bleeding 99% of the time, I get stuck with colours bleeding into places I don't want them to on stamps. Practise, practise, practise.

I'm 33 years old. I've been married to Mike Reitmeyer for 14 years. I'm a stay-at-home-wife and I have Cystic Fibrosis. We have two fur-kids: Gambit LeBeau (14 yo tabby)and Sirius Lupin my 5yo Pomeranian Service Dog.

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